And now we go again...

EssexHebridean

Morning all, thanks for stopping by and bargainy celebrations! 

A glorious day out up in Suffolk yesterday - a lovely cold crisp wander round RSPB Minsmere with plenty of bird life to see including a beautiful little flock of Bearded Tits hanging out on the reeds just a few yards ahead of us - by far the best view we’ve ever had of those so that was a delight. We bought the two replacement bird feeders we’ve been debating about for a while - a heavy duty squirrel-proof seed one and a caged fat-ball one - if those don’t deter the bushy tailed furry little blighters then we really ARE all out of ideas! Fingers crossed - I have got the seed one filled and out there this morning but no doubt it will take the small birds a while to trust it. I also spotted that they had their small diaries reduced to £3 so nabbed one of those - I was intending to just use my journal again but in fact having seen that I will combine the two things as I used to - a diary I can carry with me is very useful! 

From Minsmere we headed on to Aldeburgh - a further chilly walk admiring the Christmas lights before calling at the fish & chip shop - it’s always excellent there and this was no exception, one of the best bits of fish I’ve had with super-crispy batter - yum! Nice easy travel too - which always makes us question why we don’t head up there more often! 

Today’s plan is a bit of general pottering about this morning, to be followed by heading into London this afternoon to meet pals for beers - oddly enough we have ended up settling on doing the area directly around where I work, but that’s fine, we will mostly be heading to pubs I wouldn’t usually use I think, and the meeting point is a pub I do know well but rarely use for various reasons. 

Our financial summit will be tomorrow, I think - I will also want to shift MrEH’s salary back to the joint account at that stage, and do my money shuffle from my pay too. On the agenda will be reviewing all the pots and working out if we want to make any additional monthly contributions anywhere (grocery account very much in the spotlight on that one), reviewing savings and working out what is needed in feeder accounts for upcoming regular saver payments, and a decision about where the money will be coming from if we do decide to get the roof done in the spring/summer.

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, how lovely to get a cheerful view of bearded tits, I don't think I've ever seen one! Have a lovely afternoon out, weather is glorious here, hope it is with you too 😊

EssexHebridean

It is - bright and sunny and cheerful!  Bearded tits are lovely - they make a funny little pinging noise but often you hear them rather than seeing them - we’d only seen them once before in fact, so the closer views yesterday were ace! 

debtfreeoneday

I sat watching a Wren in our garden today for a while whilst having a cuppa. Haven’t seen one in our garden since we moved here over a year ago so was lovely to spot one. 

Seasidegal58

I agree that £10,000 off your mortgage in a year is a fantastic achievement EH!  Well done you and Mr EH!👍
Your Suffolk day out sounded lovely and enjoy your evening out tonight with your mates!

Makingabobor2

Sounds like a great day out. Hope the birds are enjoying the new feeders. We have a squirrel visits sometimes. Might have to think about some new feeders to deter him. 

EssexHebridean

The birds are currently mostly ignoring the new feeder MAB - we’ve just hung the one so far, the seed one, and it always takes them a while to get used to new ones. So far the Great Tits and Blue Tits are giving it an occasional cautious visit - the sparrows keep swooping in, flying round it in circles then heading back to the fence again for another discussion about how strange it all is! Debtfree - we get wrens in the trees behind our garden a reasonable amount - lovely little birds! 

SSG thank you - we’re really quite chuffed - the basic payments with nothing extra would have knocked it down by a little under £6k so that feels like a decent uplift! 

Well then - final diary update of the year, here we go! 

A brilliant evening was had last night - lovely to actually have evening buses linking with the tube again too.we left the pub at 9.30pm, and we’re home by about 11, so not too shabby at all. Found some good pubs, one slightly disappointing one and one which far surpassed our expectations and we will be returning to!  Also contributed to the local CAMRA branches request for additional beer scoring from a few pubs in the area. 

MSE Stuff:
- financial summit has been held 
- savings reviewed and a discussion about where we plan to take things over the next year - more regular savings, almost certainly, although obviously a lot depends on what is available as and when existing ones mature. 

- £13.xx spent in Al’s earlier got us some basic odds and ends we needed (apples, milk) and then a lot of extreme bargains. Glass kilner jars of pâté at 24p, sliced chicken for lunches £1.07 a pack, various cheeses for 33p - 65p each, a pack of Italian cured meats for 65p,  big boxes of crackers (biscuits, not Christmas!) at £1.49, and a large (500g) lump of cheddar for £1.59…Oh and a big bag of iced Lebkuchen which at 69p it would have felt rude to have left behind! (Actually popped back in a little later and nabbed another two of the 500g bits of cheese in an aged Red Leicester too as after all, it’ll freeze!)

- annoyingly realised when we got home that one of the packs of pate I’d bought pre-Christmas has slipped behind other stuff in the fridge and been forgotten, that’s had to be binned as it was too far over to risk. I hate food waste as you know so was very cross with myself about missing that! 

- the Christmas ham has been divided up and frozen - that’s been excellent value as always, and will yet feed us for three further main meals plus one pair of lunchtime rolls. 

- turkey stock made overnight last night in the SC, that has been portioned with 4 lots heading to the freezer and one being set aside to do risotto on Thursday evening.
- low priced electric made use of today- WM has been doing it’s thing at the right moment, and I was able to use a rather delicious -4p negative priced slot earlier to do some tumble drying as well. There are more negatives overnight too, so more washing, the DW is on, and we’ll be heating using electric rather than gas as it will be cheaper. 

- thanks to a bit of running around switching things on, then off again half an hour later that -4p slot earned us 15p which is decent, allowing that we were also being paid to do useful things! 

The decisions from the financial summit were to increase the grocery budget to £250 a month from £225 - much as I would sooner not, it’s just getting too tight a squeeze now. You can bet your life I will still be aiming for that super low spend month in January though! Also to stop transferring the additional £20 a month being saved on the Octopods DD to the fuel fund. There is more than enough in there for any more fuel we might need for the fire this winter, and the extra isn’t needed. The other major decision was that we are going to need to sub the savings pot for our planned trip with friends in the spring - it has been funded so far via the regular monthly payments to our joint fun pot, but the flights cleared that out, and we will now have a shortfall for the balance of the accommodation and spending money, so for the next few months the joint account surplus once PB’s are bought and the mortgage OP is made will be bolstering that pot. 

Happy new year all - see you on the other side! 🥂 

badmemory

I am still in shock here.  I have done my end of year summaries & made the mistake of comparing with last years.  I knew the housekeeping side had been going up steadily over the year.  It has gone up by over 30%.  I have changed some of the things I buy because I felt/was sure the quality was going off.  Then I realised that something I bought as a treat last christmas @ 69p this year was £1.49. It is no wonder many of us are feeling the pinch.  Then they wonder why the shops are empty.  It has made me realise that I am going to have to tighten up for the new year.  I too have increased the budget a bit but not to as much as I landed up spending.  It is a good job DS & I are going on a diet for the new year once the fridge is cleared.

Moorviews

Happy New Year 🥂 Wishing you and Mr EH lots of good times in 2025!

jwil

Happy New Year!